Word-Stress Systems

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-77
Author(s):  
Matthew K. Gordon ◽  
Harry van der Hulst
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Edge Orientation ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Distribution Of Stress ◽  
Theoretical Overview ◽  
Formal Theories

This chapter provides a typological and theoretical overview of word stress. Drawing on broad cross-linguistic data, it discusses phonological and phonetic characteristics of stress. It evaluates the typological distribution of stress systems along multiple dimensions, including notions such as obligatoriness and culminativity, the directionality of edge orientation, weight (in)sensitivity, rhythm, stress windows, non-finality, boundedness, primary versus secondary stress, and lexical versus predictable stress. Formal theories of stress and phonetic explanations for stress systems are examined. This chapter also considers some outstanding issues, such as the proper identification of stress diagnostics.

Secondary stress and metrical rhythm

1986 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 341-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.Robert Ladd ◽  
Iggy Roca
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Primary Word ◽  
The Relationship

This paper explores the relationship between some postlexical prosodic processes and metrical rhythm. The main focus is on Spanish secondary stress and related phenomena. Overall, as in previous studies, we shall differentiate three types of stress in Spanish: primary word stress, corresponding to the highest prominence in the lexical word, main phrasal stress, which signals the accentual peak in the phrase or phonic group, and secondary stress, which includes all remaining discernible stresses. It is intuitively plausible, though unsubstantiated experimentally, to assume that these three types correlate with three different degrees of prominence, of which main phrasal stress is the highest and secondary stress the lowest.

The Stress Patterns of Gothic

PMLA ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Abstract Nouns ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Primary Word ◽  
Compound Verbs ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Syntactic Context

In Gothic, as in Proto-Germanic, primary word stress was fixed on word-initial syllables, including roots, reduplicating syllables, and prefixes; the Gothic negative-pejorative prefix un- appears to have been no exception to the rule. Secondary word stress occurred initially on second immediate constituents of compounds and quasi-compounds; the stress of gudhŨs ‘temple’ and faurhāh ‘curtain’ was not exceptional. Weak word stress fell medially on vowels between syllables bearing other degrees of stress and on syllable-forming suffixes directly following primary or secondary stress; finally, weak word stress occurred on syllable-forming endings. Evidence for primary phrase stress is very limited. Excepting ga-, proclitics of verb phrases–as distinguished from compound verbs and adverbs plus verbs–bore secondary phrase stress. There appears to be no evidence to show that this stress remained in Gothic feminine compound verbal abstract nouns. The phonologic development of forms like sg. dat. pamma ‘this, that,’ sg. dat. hiamma ‘whom, what,’ and pi. 3 sind ‘they are’ reflects a stress alternation that was dependent upon their syntactic context. Go. ga-, -u -u-, and -uh -uh- bore weak phrase stress. The Gothic stress of most Biblical proper names is obscure. Alliterative passages in Gothic shed no light on the problem; rather, it is the evidence for primary word stress that serves to identify the alliteration.

Lexical analyses of the function and phonology of Papuan Malay word stress

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantijn Kaland ◽  
Angela Kluge ◽  
Vincent J. van Heuven
Keyword(s):  
Random Forest ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Word Embeddings ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Distribution Of Stress ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Stress Placement

Abstract The existence of word stress in Indonesian languages has been controversial. Recent acoustic analyses of Papuan Malay suggest that this language has word stress, counter to other studies and unlike closely related languages. The current study further investigates Papuan Malay by means of lexical (non-acoustic) analyses of two different aspects of word stress. In particular, this paper reports two distribution analyses of a word corpus, 1) investigating the extent to which stress patterns may help word recognition and 2) exploring the phonological factors that predict the distribution of stress patterns. The facilitating role of stress patterns in word recognition was investigated in a lexical analysis of word embeddings. The results show that Papuan Malay word stress (potentially) helps to disambiguate words. As for stress predictors, a random forest analysis investigated the effect of multiple morpho-phonological factors on stress placement. It was found that the mid vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ play a central role in stress placement, refining the conclusions of previous work that mainly focused on /ɛ/. The current study confirms that non-acoustic research on stress can complement acoustic research in important ways. Crucially, the combined findings on stress in Papuan Malay so far give rise to an integrated perspective to word stress, in which phonetic, phonological and cognitive factors are considered.

scholarly journals Word Stress system of the Saraiki language

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
Firdos Atta
Keyword(s):  
Stress System ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Metrical Phonology ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Foot Structure ◽  
Heavy Syllable

This study presents an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of Saraiki word stress.  This study presents a first exploration of word stress in the framework of OT. Words in Saraiki are mostly short; secondary stress plays no role here. Saraiki stress is quantity-sensitive, so a distinction must be made between short and long vowels, and light and heavy syllables. A metrical foot can consist of one heavy syllable, two light syllables, or one light and one heavy syllable. The Foot structure starts from right to left in prosodic words. The foot is trochaic and the last consonant in Saraiki words is extra metrical. These generalizations are best captured by using metrical phonology first and Optimality constraints later on.

scholarly journals The stability of word stress across Mixean languages

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Jany
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Stress System ◽  
Stress Assignment ◽  
Edge Orientation ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Heavy Syllable ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Stress Patterns

<p>Word stress patterns have been widely discussed for individual languages and in typological work (Van der Hulst 2010), but there are very few comparative studies within language families and across dialects. This paper examines stress patterns in Mixean varieties and how they relate to the phonological distinctions among these varieties. The term ‘variety’ is applied here as in a number of cases it has yet to be determined whether a variety constitutes its own language or a dialect.</p><p>Word stress does not vary in Mixean languages, always falling on the rightmost heavy root syllable, but roots often represent the only heavy syllable(s) in a word. As a result, syllable weight plays only a minimal role in stress assignment. Rather, the stress system rests upon edge-orientation and morphological conditioning. If it relied to a greater extent on the phonological structure of words, some deviation would be expected, given that variation among Mixean languages is primarily phonologically based. This paper demonstrates how weight-sensitive stress patterns can remain stable across related languages even in light of major phonological differences.</p>

scholarly journals Metrical Structure and Licensing: An Argument from Ukrainian

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Janina Mołczanow ◽  
Beata Łukaszewicz
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Main Stress

It has been debated in phonological literature whether word stress should be modeled using metrical grids or feet and how its directionality is assigned. In this article, we discuss new data from Ukrainian, which has a hybrid metrical system with unpredictable lexical stress and grammatical iterative secondary stress. We demonstrate that Ukrainian poses a challenge for current metrical theories relying on gradient alignment and propose an analysis based on categorical alignment coupled with a rhythmic licensing constraint mandating that lapses are located near the main stress (Lapse-at-Peak). We argue that Lapse-at-Peak is required regardless of the stress representations (feet or grids) assumed.

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